West Bridge Journals

Vidalia Onions

I never really liked onions, nor did I ever really think about them, until one long summer day in the highlands of a land far away on the ragged edge of nowhere. We had been flying all day from one post to another on what we lovingly called Ash and Trash Missions. We were hauling brass around, picking up supplies, delivering imagery film, mail and such. These missions can be fun if the stops included some of the larger bases, and you got a chance to go to the PX, but this day it was just small outpost and it had been a long day and the crew had not eaten since before daylight. I normally threw in a case of C Rations before the flight, but for some reason didn’t on this day.

So we were already hungry, when we got a call to pick up a Special Forces A Team Squad that was coming out of the woods near their camp, to save them from having to come in after dark. The pick up point was a small recently abandoned Montagnard Village. I no longer remember what had happen to the people, but I’m sure they were relocated for safety reasons. The Montagnards were the hill tribesmen, and were thought to be savages by both the North and South Vietnamese. However, they were able warriors and very loyal to the American Special Forces. My most valuable mementos from that time in my life are two bracelets that were given to me by a tribesman.

We flew over the LZ a couple of times until the team popped smoke, and we landed in a clearing on what was an old garden. We could tell that some kind of plant was still growing, and while we sat there, with rotor blades turning, waiting for the team to cross the clearing, the co-pilot, (WO2 Cy Nolan), told me to see what was planted. It turned out to be onions, of which I pulled up a few and put them in the helicopter. The A Team consisted of two Americans and 4 Montagnards, and one of the Montagnards peeled one of the onions and cut it into slices then passed them around. Now, like I said I didn’t like onions, but I was hungry and decided to taste it. Not bad and sweet! I had never tasted an onion that was sweet.

As it turns out, there was an American, who was a medic to the village before it was abandoned, and had asked his mother back in Georgia to send him some Vidalia Onion Plants. This soldier then helped the villagers plant them in the village garden. I guess there was something in the soil that was similar to what is in the counties in Georgia that gave it the sweetness. The irony here is that myself being a Georgia Boy, had never tasted a Vidalia Onion before, had to go half way around the world to do so.

Now I’m an onion lover.

Love them sautéed.

On a big juicy hamburger! Oh My.

Have a blessed day…

Note: Cy is gone now, having fought in two wars, the first as a P-38 pilot in WWII, where he was shot down and captured and later escaped. He came back into the Army just to go to Viet Nam at the age of 42.